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We now know the 2025 Pro Football Hall of Fame class. It was announced during NFL Honors, when a small fraternity of active players won awards for their stellar play in the 2024 season.
That got us thinking.
Who are the active players on each team potentially on a Hall of Fame track? Some are obvious. For some teams, the selection was considerably more difficult. And a few teams have multiple players tracking toward Hall of Fame status. Those picks weren’t easy, either.
Let’s get to the selections. One per team.
AFC
Baltimore Ravens
Lamar Jackson didn’t win this third MVP at NFL Honors, but this trophy room already has two of them. He’s changed the game from a mobility perspective at the quarterback spot and has become one of the more prolific passers of his era.
Buffalo Bills
Allen is now the NFL’s reigning MVP, and since 2020, he’s been a ridiculously effective touchdown creator, as the only player in NFL history with five-straight 40-plus total touchdown seasons. He’s already the Bills’ all-time leader in touchdowns with 262. Allen has sustained his status as an elite dual-threat quarterback.
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Cincinnati Bengals
I nearly went Ja’Marr Chase here. He’s tracking toward HOF status, too. But Burrow’s brilliance is bound to be immortalized in Canton one day. He’s been to a Super Bowl, played in another AFC Championship Game and has averaged more than 4,500 yards passing in each of his last three fully healthy seasons.
Cleveland Browns
Sending in Garrett as the Browns’ selection before he’s on another team. He’s a former Defensive Player of the Year who is in the running for best defensive player in football every season. He’ll be 30 years old in late December and already has 102.5 sacks despite immense blocking attention every week.
Denver Broncos
Surtain is only 24 years old, and now has a Defensive Player of the Year award to his name to go along with two first-team All Pro distinctions and 11 interceptions.
Houston Texans
The 2023 NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year hasn’t gotten other hardware through two seasons. That will come, in time. He has 18 sacks and a whopping 128 pressures entering Year 3. He’s just getting started.
Indianapolis Colts
Now 28 years old, Nelson has three first-team All Pro awards and two second-team All Pro honors at the guard position. If he continues on this path, which I assume he will, Nelson will be widely regarded as the best guard of his era.
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jaguars were difficult. I went with a rookie who exuded upside in his first season. I’m going next-level to explain how good BTJ was in Year 1. With Trevor Lawrence and Mac Jones throwing him in the football on a bad Jaguars team, he averaged 2.45 yards per route run, the sixth-highest in the NFL. For perspective, Justin Jefferson’s was 2.43 this season.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs have as many as five potential Hall of Famers. I’ll gladly take the layup, though. At this stage, Mahomes is more concerned about finishing his career as the greatest of all-time than simply making the Hall.
Las Vegas Raiders
Crosby plays an unfathomable amount of snaps, draws significant offensive-line attention and still produces at an elite level. He’s been a second-team All Pro twice and twice has led the NFL in tackles for loss. Plus, he has 59.5 sacks through six seasons.
Los Angeles Chargers
Khalil Mack was an option. He very well could get in someday. He’s been that good. I went with Herbert because of his massive potential and how the incredible start to his NFL career will likely lead to all-time great stat accumulation in his career. He currently has the most passing yards through the first five professional seasons in league history, ahead of Peyton Manning.
Miami Dolphins
Hill is a five-time first-team All Pro, and I’m of the large contingent who’s never witnessed someone both as quick and fast as Hill on the football field.
New England Patriots
Being in the rebuilding stage, it wasn’t a cinch finding someone on the Patriots, but cornerback Christian Gonzalez probably has the most likely path of anyone currently on the roster. In 2024, his first full NFL season, he was a second-team All Pro and has tremendous man-coverage talent.
New York Jets
Rodgers is still a member of the Jets, making this a piece of cake. He’s a first-ball Hall of Famer after his illustrious playing career that’s now spanned nearly two full decades.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Watt won Defensive Player of the Year in 2021 and has a grand total of six All-Pro distinctions to his name — four first-team, two second-team. He already has 108 sacks, and he only turned 30 in October.
Tennessee Titans
There haven’t been loads of accolades for Simmons, but the interior rusher is only 27 years old and has a strong reputation as one of the finest three-down defensive tackles in the game. He’s been a second-team All Pro twice and boasts 31 sacks and 49 tackles for loss through six NFL seasons to date.
NFC
Arizona Cardinals
Harrison Jr. was overshadowed to a certain degree by his rookie receiver counterparts in 2024. That doesn’t mean he had a brutal season — 62 passes for 885 yards and eight touchdowns is a fine start to an NFL career. He’ll only be 23 next season and has immense upside because of his size, speed and ball-tracking ability.
Atlanta Falcons
Robinson has been as advertised as a former first-round pick in his first two years with the Falcons. While the All-Pro distinctions haven’t come yet, they’ll be on their way soon. He went over 1,400 yards in his second season and already has 119 catches in his career entering Year 3.
Carolina Panthers
Maybe the most difficult decision in this article. I went with Brown because of his age and the immense promise he’s demonstrated when healthy after a slow-ish start to his NFL career. He’ll be 27 in April and was a monster on the inside for the Panthers in 2023.
Chicago Bears
Allen is currently sixth on the active receiving-yard list with more than 11,000 yards in his professional career to date. Things started slowly with Caleb Williams in 2024 before improving late. With Ben Johnson in the mix, if Allen has a few more 1,000-yard seasons in the tank, he could eventually sneak in.
Dallas Cowboys
All Parsons has done in his first four seasons in the NFL is total 52.5 sacks in 63 games. He’s already been a first-team All Pro twice and a second-team All Pro once. At only 25 years old, he looks like a future Hall of Famer.
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Detroit Lions
Because of the running back tandem he’s part of, it’s not hard to overlook how tremendous Gibbs has been to start his NFL career. He’ll bring a yards-per-attempt average of 5.5 on 432 regular-season carries into his third season. He’s also scored a whopping 26 touchdowns on the ground. It’s exceptionally early, but in the passing era, Gibbs is absolutely tracking toward HOF distinction as an explosive back.
Green Bay Packers
This was a challenge. With this pick, I’m banking on McKinney finding the football often in Green Bay, like he did in his first season with the Packers, when he snagged eight interceptions. He’s only entering his age 27 season.
Los Angeles Rams
Nacua joined a Rams in 2023, as an afterthought of a fifth-round pick on a team headlined by former triple-crown winner Cooper Kupp. Then, after an early-season Kupp injury, Nacua made his name known immediately, with 25 catches in his first two professional games. He was a second-team All Pro as a rookie and, even with some injuries in 2024, was one of the most efficient wideouts in football.
Minnesota Vikings
Jefferson is rewriting the record books for receiving production at the beginning of his NFL career. Through his Age 25 season, the Vikings superstar has been a First-Team All Pro twice, and Second-Team All Pro twice. Everything suggests Jefferson will continue to be one of the NFL’s most dominant receivers who is always in contention as the best wideout in football.
New Orleans Saints
Davis is one of my favorite NFL players to chronicle. Amazing, unparalleled career arc. Solid, albeit unspectacular time with the Jets and Browns until his age 29 season. Even that first year in New Orleans was good, not great. Then at age 30, something clicked. In a major way. From 2019 to 2023, Davis was a first-team All Pro once and a second-team All Pro on four occasions.
New York Giants
Nabers was THAT GOOD as a rookie to earn this distinction entering his second season with the GMen. With an abysmal collection of quarterbacks, the LSU product had 109 receptions, 1,204 yards and seven touchdowns in Year 1. The future for him is exceptionally bright.
Philadelphia Eagles
Could’ve gone Saquon Barkley here, yet I’ve picked Johnson over the uber-talented running back because of the longevity of the right tackle’s excellence. He hit the ground running on the outside in his rookie season of 2013 and has been a two-time first-team All-Pro and a three-time second-team All Pro. He’s widely regarded as the finest right tackle of his era, and he’s only 34.
San Francisco 49ers
The accolades tell the whole story of Williams’ Hall of Fame candidacy. The 49ers blocker, who turns 37 this summer, is a three-time first-team All Pro and a two-time second-team All Pro.
Seattle Seahawks
Another projection-based pick, Woolen has eight interceptions in two seasons with the Seahawks, and only turns 26 in May. Given how supremely explosive he is, he very well could stay in the upper echelon of athletes at the cornerback position for another decade, thereby giving him plenty of opportunities to make plays on the football in Seattle.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The most consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in an NFL career will get you in the Hall of Fame. He is the new record-holder, having done it in all 11 seasons he’s spent with the Buccaneers, eclipsing Jerry Rice’s previous record of 10. Evans is one of 11 pass catchers with more than 100 career receiving touchdowns (105).
Washington Commanders
Wagner has been a stable force at linebacker for well over a decade now, on three different teams — Seahawks, Rams and Commanders — and he’s hardly skipped a beat after Seattle made him a second-round pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. The former Super Bowl champion is a six-time first-team All-Pro and a five-time second-team All-Pro.
